Cyberbooks

by Ben Bova

  "Jeez," muttered Carl.

  "Yeah. And this salesman comes whizzing out of the office like his pants are on fire. The owner walks out after him with a smoking Smith & Wesson in his hand!"

  Carl grunted. He had just dropped an electro-optical chip out of the micromanipulator's tiny fingers. Malzone took it as a comment on his unfolding story.

  "Now remember, I had been sent there to give him an ultimatum, too. The sonofabitch hadn't been paying any of his bills for months. So there he is, the smoking gun in his hand and fire in his eyes. And he sees me sitting there, just about to crap in my pants."

  "Uh-huh." Carl picked up the chip and deftly inserted it where it belonged, at last.

  " 'Whaddaya you want?' he asks me, waving the gun in my general direction. Before I can answer, he says, 'You're the new kid from General, ain'tcha?' I sort of nod, and he tucks the gun in his pants and says, 'Come on, kid, I'll show you what this business is all about.' He takes me to the bar next door and we spend the rest of the afternoon drinking beer."

  Without looking up at him, Carl asked, "Did he ever pay you what he owed?"

  "Oh sure, eventually. He got to be one of the best customers on my route."

  "That's good," said Carl.

  Malzone's lanky face frowned slightly, but from behind his magnifiers Carl could no more see the expression on his face than a myopic dolphin could see the carvings of Mt. Rushmore. Malzone sank into silence. The two men were alone in the electronics lab. It was well after midnight. Silent and dim in the corridors beyond the lab's long windows. Silent and dim inside the clean room, too, except for the pool of intense light Carl had focused onto his work area from a swing-neck lamp.

  The older man studied Carl intently as he worked. His stories about his youthful adventures in the sales end of the publishing business had been a way to pass the time, and to hide the terrible smoldering jealousy he felt burning in his guts. For wiry, grinning, gregarious Ralph Malzone was secretly, totally, hopelessly in love with Lori. He had never told her how he felt. He had never even worked up the courage to ask her for a date. But as he watched Carl working on electronic circuitry that was far beyond his own knowledge, Ralph realized that this guy was Lori's own age and they had known each other in Boston, before Lori had come to New York, before he had met her and fallen so hard for her. He heard someone sigh like a moonstruck moose. Himself.

  "Maybe I should go out and get us a coupla beers," Malzone suggested.

  "Not for me. Anyway, I think it's just about finished."

  Carl held his breath as he inserted the final filament lead. "Yeah," he said in a shaky whisper. "Yeah, I think that's it."

  He straightened up painfully, his spine suddenly telling him that he had spent too many hours bent over his labor. Taking off the magnifiers, Carl blinked several times, then rubbed his eyes.

  "Will it work now?" Malzone asked.

  "It should."

  Still, Carl's hands trembled slightly as he snapped the cover shut on the oblong case and turned it over so that its screen glinted in the lamp's powerful light.

  He touched the first keypad with his index finger. The screen sprang to life instantly, glowing with color to reveal the title page of Rain Makes Applesauce.

  Carl let out the breath he had not realized he'd been holding in. It worked. It worked! He picked up the glowing box and offered it to Malzone, grinning. It looked much smaller in the sales manager's long-fingered, big-knuckled hands.

  "What do I do?" Malzone asked.

  "Just touch the green button to move ahead a page. Hold it down and it will riffle through the pages for you until you take your finger off. Then it'll stop. If you want a specific page, tap in the number on the little keyboard on the right." Malzone spent several minutes paging back and forth. Looking over his shoulder, Carl saw that the screen was working fine: everything in clear focus. The illustrations looked beautifully sharp.

  "Nice gadget," Malzone said at last, handing it back to Carl.

  "Is that all you can say?"

  Malzone hunched his shoulders. "It's an electronic way of looking at a book. Like a pocket TV, only you can see books with it instead of TV programs. Might make a nice fad gift for the Christmas season."

  "But it's a lot more than that!" Carl said fervently. "This is going to replace books printed on paper! This is the biggest breakthrough since the printing press!"

  "Nahhh." Malzone shook his head, his russet brows knitted. "It's a nice idea, but it's not going to replace books. Who'd buy a machine that's got to cost at least a hundred bucks when you can buy a hardcover book for fifty? And a paperback for less than ten?"

  "Who would buy a hardcover or a paperback," Carl retorted, "when an electronic book will cost pennies?"

  Malzone grunted, just as if someone had whacked him in the gut with a pool cue.

  "Pennies?"

  "Sure, the reader—this device, here—is going to cost more than a half-dozen books. But once you own one you can get your books electronically. Over the phone, if you like. The most expensive books there are will cost less than a dollar!"

  "Now wait a minute. You mean . . ."

  "No paper!" Carl exulted. "You don't have to chop down trees and make paper and haul tons of the stuff to the printing presses and then haul the printed books to the stores. You move electrons and photons instead of paper! It's cheap and efficient."

  For a long moment Malzone said nothing. Then he sighed a very heavy sigh. "You're saying that a publisher won't need printers, paper, ink, wholesalers, route salesmen, district managers, truck drivers—not even bookstores?"

  "The whole thing can be done electronically," Carl enthused. "Shop for books by TV. Buy them over the phone. Transmit them anywhere on Earth almost instantaneously, straight to the customer."

  Malzone glanced around the shadows of the clean room uneasily. In a near whisper he told Carl, "Jesus Christ, kid, you're going to get both of us killed."

  And deep within his innermost primitive self he thought, Maybe I ought to knock you off myself and save us both a lot of misery.

  SEVEN

  The following morning, a bleary-eyed Carl Lewis sat before Mrs. Alba Blanca Bunker, the publisher of Bunker Books. Her husband, of course, was sole owner of the company—almost. A few shares of stock were scattered here and there, but the controlling interest was firmly in the hands of Pandro T. Bunker, his wife, and his only son, P. T. Jr.

  The Boss sat behind her petite desk, with Junior at his mother's side, a crafty little smile on his narrow-eyed face. Mrs. Bunker was, as usual, dressed entirely in white. Her office was all in white as well: the dainty Louis-Something-or-Other furniture was bleached white, the carpeting looked like softly tufted white angora wool, the walls and ceiling were white cream. Carl had once been trapped in a sudden blizzard in the (where else?) White Mountains years earlier, and the effect of the Boss's office was much the same. Whiteout. Almost snowblind.

  But warmer. Much warmer. Golden sunlight streamed through the windows of the corner office. And Mrs. Bunker was smiling pleasantly as she tapped away at Carl's invention, happily reading Rain Makes Applesauce from beginning to end.

  Absolute silence reigned. Not even the crackle of a page being turned, of course. Carl watched the almost childlike expression on Mrs. Bunker's face as she read through the delightful book and studied its fascinating illustrations. Junior peered over her shoulder now and then, but mostly he seemed to be staring at Carl as if trying to size him up. Carl felt that uncomfortable sensation a man gets when he's confronted by a determined haberdashery salesman.

  Lori sat beside him, close enough almost to touch. Their chairs were delicate, graceful, yet surprisingly comfortable.

  The suit Mrs. Bunker was wearing seemed identical to the one she wore the previous day, to Carl. Her jewelry was different, however, although still all gold. Junior wore jeans and a ragged biker's T-shirt, complete with artificial sweat and grease stains. Its front bore a Bunker Books logo. Lori was in a simple wide-yo
ked light tan dress that showed her smooth shoulders to advantage.

  Carl felt distinctly grubby. He had grabbed a few hours' sleep in the hotel room that Bunker had provided, and then climbed back into the same slacks and tweed jacket he had worn the day before. Except for one change of underwear and shirt, that was all the clothes he had brought with him.

  Mrs. Bunker finished Rain Makes Applesauce at last, and put Carl's reader down on the immaculate surface of her little desk.

  "It's a beautiful book," she said. "I noticed from the copyright date that it's almost fifty years old. Is it in the public domain yet? Can we reprint it?"

  Surprised by her question, Carl stammered, "Gosh, I . . . it never occurred to me that you would want . . ."

  "That's not really why we're here, Mrs. Bee," said Lori with equal amounts of politeness and firmness in her voice.

  "Oh. Of course. I just thought that if the book is in the public domain we could publish it without the expense of paying the author."

  "Or the illustrator," Junior chimed in.

  Mother turned a pleased smile upon son. "But how did you like the electro-optical reader?" Carl blurted, unable to stand the suspense any further.

  Mrs. Bunker smiled again, but differently. "It's wonderful. It's everything you said it would be. The pages are crisp and clear, and the illustrations come out beautifully. I've never seen such brilliant colors in print. Well—let's say seldom, instead of never."

  Reaching into his jacket pocket, Carl pulled out a half dozen more wafers and spread them out on the Boss's desk.

  "Here we have War and Peace, Asimov's Guide to Everything, this year's World Almanac"—he pointed each one out with his index finger—"and these three contain the complete novels of James Michener."

  "Really? All in those little disks?" Mrs. Bunker asked.

  "All in these six wafers," Carl agreed. "I could provide you with the complete Encyclopedia Britannica in a pocketful more. Or two of Victor Hugo's novels in a single wafer."

  "Hugo? Who publishes him?" asked Mrs. Bunker.

  "Hey, Mom," Junior replied, "he does plays. He was big on Broadway the year I was born. Don't you remember, Dad almost named me John Val John." He pronounced the name like a New Yorker, and favored his mother with a condescending smile that pitied her lack of literary lore.

  Carl glanced at Lori, who kept a perfectly straight face.

  "It's a wonderful invention," Mrs. Bunker said again, "and think you're right—this can transform the publishing industry. I believe that Bunker Books can become the nation's number-one publisher if we move ahead swiftly with this."

  Carl felt a surge of—what? Satisfaction. Relief. Joy. Justification for all the months he had spent half starving and working twenty hours a day to create the electro-optical marvel that rested modestly on the desk of this woman in white. He felt gratitude, too. For deep within him, buried in the innermost convolutions of his mind, there lurked a stubborn fear that his invention was worthless, that any half-trained TV repair man could have figured it out, that it was nothing but a toy without any real value whatsoever.

  But she thinks it's great, Carl told himself. She thinks it's going to transform the publishing industry, he rejoiced triumphantly to that inner voice of fear.

  And the voice answered, Maybe so. She also thinks Victor Hugo is a Broadway playwright.

  Carl found that he had to swallow a lump in his throat before he could say, "I'm very pleased, Mrs. Bunker. How do you want to proceed from here?"

  "Proceed?" Her face suddenly looked blank.

  "Do we sign a consulting agreement, or do you want me to become a contractor to Bunker Books? What kind of payments will Bunker Books make for the invention? What rights do you want to purchase? That sort of thing."

  With a glance toward her son, Mrs. Bunker answered, "I'm not empowered to make any commitments of that sort. Only Mr. Bunker himself can do that."

  "Then I suppose I'll have to demonstrate the device to him," Carl said, reaching for the reader.

  Mrs. Bunker put on a smile that showed some teeth. "Couldn't you let me borrow it overnight? I'll show it to my husband this evening."

  With alarm bells tingling in every nerve, Carl slowly slid the reader to the edge of the desk and gripped it in both his hands. "This is the only prototype in existence. I'm afraid I can't let it out of my sight. I'd be glad to show it to Mr. Bunker myself. . . ."

  Mrs. Bee bit her lower lip. "That may be difficult. He's such a busy man. . . ."

  Holding the reader firmly in his lap, Carl gestured with his other hand to the six wafers still resting on the desk top. "I can let you show the wafers to him. To give him an idea of how small and cheap books can be made."

  "But he won't be able to read them without your device, will he?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "What's the matter, don't you trust us?" Junior asked. His tone was light enough, almost bantering. But there was no levity in his face.

  Carl replied, "This isn't personal. I decided before I left Boston hat I would not let the prototype out of my sight."

  A cloud of silence dimmed the all-white office.

  "I'd be glad to show it to Mr. Bunker personally," Carl repeated.

  "I suppose that's what we'll have to do, then," said Mrs. Bunker. "I'll see what I can arrange."

  Feeling vastly relieved, Carl shot to his feet. "Thank you! You won't regret it."

  He put out his hand to her, still staunchly grasping the prototype in his left hand. She made a sweet smile without getting up from her chair and touched his hand briefly, like a queen dispensing a blessing. Junior's eyes never left the device until Carl tucked it back into his black courier case.

  Lori and Carl got as far as the door. Mrs. Bunker called, "Oh, Lori, dear. Could you stay a moment longer? There's something want to discuss with you."

  Carl stepped outside into the busy corridor where editors and other unidentified frenzied objects were dashing about. Mrs. Bunker had no secretary, no outer office. Bunker Books was a tightly run ship where computers and communications were used in place of salaried employees, Carl realized. It's criminal to use human beings in lackey jobs like secretarial work, he told himself. Nothing but ostentatious show for the people who hire them and degrading drudgery for the people who take such jobs. Electrons work more efficiently. And cheaper. Any job that can be done twice the same way ought to be done by a machine.

  Then why do they have editors? he asked himself. Computers can check a manuscript's spelling and grammar much more thoroughly than any human being can. What do editors do that computers can't?

  His ruminations were interrupted by Lori's stepping through the Boss's office door and out into the corridor. A grim-faced gray-haired man clutching a long trailing sweep of narrow white sheets of paper fluttering behind him like the tail of a kite bolted past them like an underweight halfback being pursued by the first-string defense. He brushed so close to Lori that she jumped into Carl's arms.

  "Who was that?" he asked, releasing her as the gray flash disappeared down the hall.

  "Grenouille, the assistant managing editor," Lori said without moving from his side. "He's always in a rush."

  Carl shook his head. "This is an odd place."

  "Isn't it, though?" Lori laughed.

  As they headed back toward her office, Lori said, "How's your hotel room?"

  He shrugged. "It's a hotel room. Okay, I guess. It's walking distance to the office."

  "My apartment's down in the Village. How about letting me cook you dinner tonight?"

  "Fine!"

  "And then you can come and watch me dance."

  Carl tried to stop his face from reddening, but he could feel his cheeks turning hot. "Uh, okay, sure."

  Lori grinned up at him.

  *

  Alba Blanca Bunker sat on the edge of the enormous round waterbed waiting for her husband. She was tired. It had been a hectic, exhausting day. The new line of historic novels was not selling well. It had seemed so rig
ht: a line of novels based on true history, the actual deeds and romantic exploits of some of history's greatest figures—Cary Grant, Lynn Redgrave, Willie Nelson, Barbara Walters. But despite a six-million-dollar publicity campaign, the books were moldering in the warehouses. Nobody seemed to want them.

  She sighed deeply and lay back on the waterbed, allowing her filmy white peignoir to drape itself dramatically across the tiger-striped sheets. She studied the effect in the overhead mirror. This bedroom had been their fantasy place when they had first built this home out of a converted warehouse next to the Disneydome, years earlier. With voice command either she or her husband could convert the hologrammic decor from jungle to desert, from underwater to outer space. With a sad little smile she remembered how the circuitry had blown itself out in a shower of sparks during one particularly vocal bout of lovemaking.

  Nothing like that had happened for many years now. The room was a cool forest green, the scent of pine in the whispering breeze, the hint of a full moon silvering the drawn draperies of the window.

  She knew where her husband was. In his office talking to Beijing, trying desperately to nail down the deal that would open up the Chinese market. A billion potential customers! It could mean the salvation of Bunker Books.

  Or could this MIT whiz kid be their salvation? His invention worked, there was no denying it. How much would he want for it? How much would it cost to start a whole new line of operations, electronic books instead of paper ones? That's why we need the China deal, she told herself, to provide the capital for developing the electronic book. Otherwise . . .

  There was still the tender offer from Tarantula Enterprises. Pandro would never sell his company. Never. He had built it practically from scratch, with nothing but the ten million his father had loaned him. Bunker Books was his creation, and he would go to hell and burn eternally before he would sell the company or any part of it.